A scorecard on MM03

Our analysis in our two recent articles, in GRL and E&E, has moved well beyond the points made in MM03, while building on them. Mann has recently claimed that all of our claims in MM03 have been discredited. I thought it would be interesting to look back at the claims in MM03 and see how they’ve stood up.

Of the 10 claims in MM03, my scorecard indicates that 7 have either been explicitly confirmed or are obviously correct and unrebutted (and in 3 cases, the problems were more pervasive than known at the time of MM03); MBH have withdrawn 1 data set affecting 2 claims (the defects may only apply to the withdrawn data set, but other than mere assertion, there is no proof that the problems did not infect other calculations).

MBH have been required to issue 1 Corrigendum to date, have been required to issue a large new Supplementary Information as a condition of the Corrigendum, have provided the first public notice of a previously undisclosed directory on MBH98 at Mann’s FTP site and are still providing new and additional disclosure on MBH98 methods (even as recently as Nov. 22, 2004).

Contrary to MBH claims, the 10th claim is not discredited in Rutherford et al. [2005], which fails to deal with responses already on the record. More importantly, the 10th claim has led to more advanced (but not inconsistent) considerations of MBH98 through robustness, proxy validity and statistical significance, which have led to the 2 new peer-reviewed articles, MM05 (GRL) and MM05 (E&E).

18 Comments

The subject of climate change is vastly greater than the intellectual abilities of man that we are totally wasting our time in assuming this is not so. It only takes another krakatoa or Mt St. Helens or another Pompeii to blow all the man made ideas into a cocked hat. There are too many other things that the world needs to get on witth rather than Kyoto..The people promoting it are environmentalists and academics aided by the usual left wing TV programs

My comments are against the kyoto accord and having typed out a paragragh it was wiped out. So here is a shrtened version…Climate change has been around since the world was made and keeps changing regardless of what man might try to do …It only takes another Krakatoa or Mt St. Helen’s or Pompeii and in recent days the Tsunami in the Pacific to make us realize how small we are in comparison to earth’s and sun’s effects…We should get on with those things that we might be able to eradicate e.g. aids and all sorts of other things. Trying to touch climate is not in our league—-whatever we try will be costly and doomed to fail. How did these people get to such a position of authority. By this I point my finger at quasi environnentalists and academics who have never met a payroll in their lives but are the darlingss of the left wing press and second rate politicians and scaremongers

I must say, the work you (two) have been doing is nearly heroic; that a well educated and talented “non-expert” can take the time to appraise data from the mainstream Phd’s and build an increasingly powerful deconstruction is quite a story.

Now, for my stupid question (being a lay reader). If the bristlecone data is excluded, what other proxy data is left in the Western hemisphere? How ‘weighted’ is the European data (esp the MWPeriod) when compared to global sources? At some point it would seem that a paucity of broad samples would call an accurate “world” tempature record into question.

#5. Mark, if I were to try to pick a proxy for centennial temperature history, it would be changing treelines. I’ve seen some interesting individual studies, but many more need to be done, as well as a big survey. Also the scientists writing studies need to spend a little more time reconciling conflicting tree line information. How can you use bristlecone ring widths to say that the medieival period was exceptionally cold when ecological niche modeling of Millar et al 2006 (and earlier conference presentations) shows a very warm MSP in the California Sierra Nevadas?

I must say, the work you (two) have been doing is nearly heroic; that a well educated and talented “non-expert” can take the time to appraise data from the mainstream Phd’s and build an increasingly powerful deconstruction is quite a story.

As a PhD in a wholly unrelated field, the need for scientific methodology to be as clearly articulated and buttressed with critical goodness of fit test results consistent to all research. It strikes me that if MBH98 were a dissertation, it would not have been published. I have enjoyed my 2 day inquiry into your work and am dumbfounded by your results. My question is, can you explain how the House Committee found your work substantive and supported your results, but the NY Times, Boston Globe etc. stated the opposite? Did the House Committee hearings result in a published report that can be accessed?
Excellent work – I’m a new fan!

As a layperson with a BS, I have to say I am completely dumbfounded by this entire climate change exercise. To think that one paper using one horrible dataset has nearly corrupted the entire world is simply mind-boggling.

When the history of science sorts all this out in a few centuries, I have no doubt in my mind that Mann and crew will take their place among the most infamous scientists in Western civilization.

My thanks to you and Mr. McKitrick for taking the time and having the courage to stand up to this nonsense. I just hope that the public trust isn’t too eroded by this whole ordeal. Otherwise we’re in for a world of hurt much worse than anything climate change could bring.

Jacob, thanks for those updated links. This a powerful post….. Perhaps Steve or others could revisit the scorecard at some point, and is the a scorecard for MBH99? I know it’s an endless slog, but Michael Mann and the Real Climate team continue to obfuscate and worse.